Back in time

Morris Griffiths, great great-grandson of George Griffiths, who founded the Fiji Times & Herald in
September 1869 at Levuka, at the front of the old Fiji Times newsroom in Suva with his partner Haelim Son.
Picture: JONE LUVENITOGA

IT was a historic occasion for the great-great-grandson of the Fiji Times & Herald founder when he stopped at this newspaper's head office last week to see for himself the legacy his forefather.

Morris Griffiths, 45, is a descendant of one of Fiji's most renowned media pioneers, George Griffiths, who founded this newspaper in Levuka in 1869.

Mr Griffiths, along with his partner Haelim Son, said this was the first time they had ever visited Fiji.

"The only reason for this trip was because we wanted to visit the Fiji Times," he said.

"We've never been here before, so we thought we'd come and see what Fiji was like and certainly what my family had left behind here.

"I didn't know what to expect coming to Fiji, but it has been great and we're definitely going to come back here."

Mr Griffiths said his great-grandfather, Arthur Griffiths, who grew up in Levuka while the Fiji Times was just getting off the ground, wrote a book Memories of Fiji in which he described life in Levuka and in Fiji as a child and a young adult.

"Through this book, I learnt a lot about Fiji and it really is one of the main reasons I came here, to see what Fiji was like now, compared to then."

The book was never published, but was instead used as a record of family history which only stayed within the Griffiths family.